The Portable William Blake (27 page)

Religion is an endeavour to reconcile the two. NOTE: Jesus Christ did not wish to unite, but to separate them, as in the Parable of sheep and goats! & he says: “I came not to send Peace, but a Sword.”

Messiah or Satan or Tempter was formerly thougnt to be one of the Antediluvians who are our Energies.

An Angel came to me and said: “0 pitiable foolish young man! O horriblel O dreadful statel consider the hot burning dungeon thou art preparing for thyself to all eternity, to which thou art going in such career.”

I said: “Perhaps you will be willing to shew me my eternal lot, & we will contemplate together upon it, and see whether your lot or mine is most desirable.”

So he took me thro’ a stable & thro’ a church & down into the church vault, at the end of which was a mill: thro’ the mill we went, and came to a cave: down the winding cavern we groped our tedious way, till a void boundless as a nether sky appear’d beneath us, & we held by the roots of trees and hung over this immensity; but I said: “if you please, we will commit ourselves to this void, and see whether providence is here also: if you will not, I will:” but he answer’d: “do not presume, O young man, but as we here remain, behold thy lot which will soon appear when the darkness passes away.”

So I remain’d with him, sitting in the twisted roof of an oak; he was suspended in a fungus, which hung with the head downward into the deep.

By degrees we beheld the infinite Abyss, fiery as the smoke of a burning city; beneath us, at an immense distance, was the sun, black but shining; round it were fiery tracks on which revolv’d vast spiders, crawling after their prey, which flew, or rather swum, in the infinite deep, in the most terrific shapes of animals sprung from corruption; & the air was full of them, & seem’d composed of them: these are Devils, and are called Powers of the air. I now asked my companion which was my eternal lot? he said: “between the black & white spiders.”

But now, from between the black & white spiders, a cloud and fire burst and rolled thro’ the deep, black’ning all beneath, so that the nether deep grew black as a sea, & rolled with a terrible noise; beneath us was nothing now to be seen but a black tempest, till looking east between the clouds & the waves, we saw a cataract of blood mixed with fire, and not many stones’ throw from us appear’d and sunk again the scaly fold of a monstrous serpent; at last, to the east, distant about three degrees, appear’d a fiery crest above the waves; slowly it reared like a ridge of golden rocks, till we discover’d two globes of crimson fire, from which the sea fled away in clouds of smoke; and now we saw it was the head of Leviathan; his forehead was divided into streaks of green & purple like those on a tyger’s forehead: soon we saw his mouth & red gills hang just above the raging foam, tinging the black deep with beams of blood, advancing toward us with all the fury of a spiritual existence.

My friend the Angel climb’d up from his station into the mill: I remain’d alone; & then this appearance was no more, but I found myself sitting on a pleasant bank beside a river by moonlight, hearing a harper, who sung to the harp; & his theme was: “The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, & breeds reptiles of the mind.”

But I arose and sought for the mill, & there I found my Angel, who, surprised, asked me how I escaped?

I answer’d: “All that we saw was owing to your metaphysics; for when you ran away, I found myself on a bank by moonlight hearing a harper. But now we have seen my eternal lot, shall I shew you yours?” he laugh’d at my proposal; but I by force suddenly caught him in my arms, & flew westerly thro’ the night, till we were elevated above the earth’s shadow; then I flung myself with him directly into the body of the sun; here I clothed myself in white, & taking in my hand Swedenborg’s volumes, sunk from the glorious clime, and passed all the planets till we came to saturn: here I stay’d to rest, & then leap’d into the void between saturn & the fixed stars.

“Here,” said I, “is your lot, in this space—if space it may be call’d.” Soon we saw the stable and the church, & I took him to the altar and open’d the Bible, and lol it was a deep pit, into which I descended, driving the Angel before me; soon we saw seven houses of brick; one we enter’d; in it were a number of monkeys, baboons, & all of that species, chain’d by the middle, grinning and snatching at one another, but withheld by the shortness of their chains: however, I saw that they sometimes grew numerous, and then the weak were caught by the strong, and with a grinning aspect, first coupled with, & then devour’d, by plucking off first one limb and then another, till the body was left a helpless trunk; this, after grinning & kissing it with seeming fondness, they devour’d too; and here & there I saw one savourily picking the flesh off his own tail; as the stench terribly annoy’d us both, we went into the mill, & I in my hand brought the skeleton of a body, which in the mill was Aristotle’s Analytics.

So the Angel said: “thy phantasy has imposed upon me, & thou oughtest to be ashamed.”

I answer’d: “we impose on one another, & it is but lost time to converse with you whose works are only Analytics.”

 

 

Opposition is true Friendship.

 

 

I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise; this they do with a confident insolence sprouting from systematic reasoning.

Thus Swedenborg boasts that what he writes is new: tho’ it is only the Contents or Index of already publish’d books.

A man carried a monkey about for a shew, & because he was a little wiser than the monkey, grew vain, and conciev’d himself as much wiser than seven men. It is so with Swedenborg: he shews the folly of churches, & exposes hypocrites, till he imagines that all are religious, & himself the single one on earth that ever broke a net.

Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written one new truth. Now hear another: he has written all the old falsehoods.

And now hear the reason. He conversed with Angels who are all religious, & conversed not with Devils who all hate religion, for he was incapable thro’ his conceited notions.

Thus Swedenborg’s writings are a recapitulation of all superficial opinions, and an analysis of the more sublime —but no further.

Have now another plain fact. Any man of mechanical talents may, from the writings of Paracelsus or Jacob Behmen, produce ten thousand volumes of equal value with Swedenborg’s, and from those of Dante or Shake-spear an infinite number.

But when he has done this, let him not say that he knows better than his master, for he only holds a candle in sunshine.

Once I saw a Devil in a flame of fire, who arose before an Angel that sat on a cloud, and the Devil utter’d these words:

“The worship of God is: Honouring his gifts in other men, each according to his genius, and loving the greatest men best: those who envy or calumniate great men hate God; for there is no other God.”

The Angel hearing this became almost blue; but mastering himself he grew yellow, & at last white, pink, & smiling, and then replied:

“Thou Idolater! is not God One? & is not he visible in Jesus Christ? and has not Jesus Christ given his sanction to the law of ten commandments? and are not all other men fools, sinners, & nothings?”

The Devil answer’d: “Bray a fool in a morter with wheat, yet shall not his folly be beaten out of him; if Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you ought to love him in the greatest degree; now hear how he has given his sanction to the law of ten commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath and so mock the sabbath’s God? murder those who were murder’d because of him? turn away the law from the woman taken in adultery? steal the labor of others to support him? bear false witness when he omitted making a defence before Pilate? covet when he pray’d for his disciples, and when he bid them shake off the dust of their feet against such as refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can exist without breaking these ten commandments. Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not from rules.”

When he had so spoken, I beheld the Angel, who stretched out his arms, embracing the flame of fire, & he was consumed and arose as Elijah.

NOTE: This Angel, who is now become a Devil, is my particular friend; we often read the Bible together in its infernal or diabolical sense, which the world shall have if they behave well.

I have also The Bible of Hell, which the world shall have whether they will or no.

 

 

One Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression.

1. The Eternal Female groan‘d! it was heard over all the Earth.

2. Albion’s coast is sick, silent; the American meadows faint!

3. Shadows of Prophecy shiver along by the lakes and the rivers, and mutter across the ocean: France, rend down thy dungeon!

4. Golden Spain, burst the barriers of old Rome!

5. Cast thy keys, O Rome, into the deep down falling, even to eternity down falling,

6. And weep.

7. In her trembling hand she took the new born terror, howling.

8. On those infinite mountains of light, now barr’d out by the atlantic sea, the new born fire stood before the starry king !

9. Flag’d with grey brow’d snows and thunderous visages, the jealous wings wav’d over the deep.

10. The speary hand burned aloft, unbuckled was the shield; forth went the hand of jealousy among the flaming hair, and hurl’d the new born wonder thro’ the starry night.

11. The fire, the fire is falling!

12. Look up! look up! 0 citizen of London, enlarge thy countenance! O Jew, leave counting gold! return to thy oil and wine. O African! black African! (go, winged thought, widen his forehead.)

13. The fiery limbs, the flaming hair, shot like the sinking sun into the western sea.

14. Wak’d from his eternal sleep, the hoary element roaring fled away.

15. Down rush’d, beating his wings in vain, the jealous king; his grey brow’d councellors, thunderous warriors, curl’d veterans, among helms, and shields, and chariots, horses, elephants, banners, castles, slings, and rocks.

16. Falling, rushing, ruining! buried in the ruins, on Urthona’s dens;

17. All night beneath the ruins; then, their sullen flames faded, emerge round the gloomy king.

18. With thunder and fire, leading his starry hosts thro’ the waste wilderness, he promulgates his ten commands, glancing his beamy eyelids over the deep in dark dismay,

19. Where the son of fire in his eastern cloud, while the morning plumes her golden breast,

20. Spurning the clouds written with curses, stamps the stony law to dust, loosing the eternal horses from the dens of night, crying:

EMPIRE IS NO MORE! AND NOW THE LION & WOLF SHALL CEASE

 

CHORUS

Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn no longer, in deadly black, with hoarse note curse the sons of joy. Nor his accepted brethren—whom, tyrant, he calls free—lay the bound or build the roof. Nor pale religious letchery call that virginity that wishes but acts notl

 

For every thing that lives is Holy.

FOR THE SEXES: THE GATES OF PARADISE

(1793-1818)

The Sun’s Light when he unfolds it
Depends on the Organ that beholds it.

Mutual Forgiveness of each Vice,
Such are the Gates of Paradise.
Against the Accuser’s chief desire,
Who walk’d among the Stones of Fire,
Jehovah’s Finger Wrote the Law:
Then Wept! then rose in Zeal & Awe,
And the Dead Corpse from Sinai’s heat
Buried beneath his Mercy Seat.
O Christians, Christians! tell me Why
You rear it on your Altars high.

I found him beneath a Tree.